After years, MeinMMO demon Cortyn has once again ventured into SMITE . The game is now significantly more chaotic – but is it still fun?
SMITE and I. We used to be good friends. I couldn’t get into League of Legends, DOTA never appealed to me, and the “third-person perspective” of SMITE was appealing. You were simply much closer to the cool characters; everything felt more action-packed.
For years, I lost track of the game and have now started again with a former SMITE comrade.
Whether the comeback succeeds, whether SMITE is worth it, and what the most negative developments of the MOBA over the past years are, I want to describe here.
The gods are becoming too complex – Half novels as descriptions
SMITE suffers from a problem that, at first glance, has only worsened over the years. Even now, SMITE continues to release new gods and must therefore always come up with fresh and unused ideas.
But that’s not so easy. Because at some point, you’ve simply introduced all the meaningful types of abilities for characters into a game.
SMITE solves the problem in the most exhausting way: Overwhelming complexity. Instead of just having 4 abilities and a passive effect, the new gods often have skills that further break down into several smaller sub-skills.
For example, the relatively fresh “goddess”, Morgan Le Fay from the Arthurian saga, can cast a damage spell that has three different variants and secondary effects: a fear effect, a summoned clone, or a slow field.
The second spell is not just a fire projectile that leaves a DoT on the enemy but also grants a speed boost and is refreshed through normal attacks.
Even the ultimate has numerous components. Each spell from Morgan Le Fay applies enemies with different runes, which can then be consumed by the ultimate. Each intertwined rune increases the width of the ultimate projectiles.
When you compare these new gods with the old ones, this increased complexity becomes immediately evident. The ability texts are shorter, the effects clearer and more distinct, as they do not have a myriad of different additional factors.
This doesn’t mean that the new gods aren’t fun. I immediately fell in love with Morgan Le Fay once I understood her. It merely means that, as a returning player or newcomer, you not only have to memorize all the new gods, but these gods are also much more complex, which only exacerbates the problem.
In some ability descriptions, I face entire “walls of text” where I think: “By Olympus, I just want to play a game”. Many of the new abilities seem so overloaded and filled with so many nuances that it simply makes no enjoyment to even want to learn them.
Game modes like “Assault”, where a random god is offered to you, are nearly impossible. “Just quickly skim through the abilities” is simply no longer possible; by the time I’ve done that, the first 5 minutes of a match have already passed.
No, the return to SMITE is relatively hard and uncomfortable. It took hours to slowly get back “in the flow,” and even after a week, I still have no idea what will immediately shred me with some gods.
But at least it’s fun – and that’s hard to argue against.
However, complete newcomers would need to learn 118 gods, which, similar to the competitor LoL, is a huge, daunting barrier.
The game itself – Engaging as back then
If you survive the first hours and the chaos of returning, then SMITE quickly unfolds the fun gameplay loop that was already so enjoyable for me back then.
The third-person perspective behind the gods still fits fantastically and ensures that SMITE sometimes feels more like an action game. Almost every attack is a skill shot, and only a few exceptions allow for a fixed targeting of enemies.
This keeps SMITE feeling more active than other MOBAs even today.
However, I must confess: I can’t get into the Conquest mode. This is the “classic” MOBA mode with 3 lanes and a setup of 5 vs 5. I have much more fun in the smaller maps, like Joust or Siege, where only 6 or 8 players participate.
The matches there also don’t last as long, and it’s not so bad if you get “completely run over” – after all, the humiliation is over in 10 to 15 minutes.
But when it’s going well, the coordination with the team is right, and a bit of luck plays along, then SMITE is just a lot of fun. It’s action-packed, exciting, and not infrequently, there were cool “comeback” moments when a defeat could still be turned into a victory.
Although I had gotten used to not having to buy items in HotS (there simply aren’t any), it was easy to handle in SMITE again. Conveniently: A lot has been done since then, and all gods now have recommended item sets that are suitable for starting. Even better: You can create your own purchase lists for each god and goddess individually.
It didn’t take long before I had set everything up for my goddess team of Scylla, Serqet, Bastet, Morgan Le Fay, and Amaterasu just the way it should be.
Yes, SMITE is fun. I had almost forgotten it over the years.
Skins that make me laugh
If there’s one thing I have to give credit to SMITE for, it’s the variety and creativity in the skins.
That’s somehow the beauty of SMITE. There are no legendary franchise heroes like in Heroes of the Storm, with whom you have to be particularly careful. The developers can fully unleash their creativity, and they do.
They don’t even shy away from anime skins – and I celebrate that.
When I, as an overly colorful cat goddess Bastet, run at the enemy, firing her ultimate with “Kitty-Cat, nyaaaan!”, I can’t help but grin.
When Amaterasu, in the best maid outfit with a tsundere personality, praises her teammates with “I-It’s not that I like you or anything, baka!”, my mouth corners rise.
Some skins are, of course, a bit “over the top.” When I see Jormungandr hopping through the map as a giant meme cat, it’s a bit too out there for me. But hey – I don’t have to buy the skins.
At the same time, SMITE is also significantly cheekier than other MOBAs, especially due to the voices of the gods. When the bee god “Ah Muzen-Cab” mocks opponents by saying he “pollinated their mother,” I’m pretty sure other games would have long since eliminated such lines.
No question about it. If there’s one thing SMITE can do, it’s design plenty of skins that practically force me to want to spend money.
Besides, SMITE even has absurd gods like C’thulhu.
That’s what’s beautiful about SMITE. Since you’re so close to the action, you see much more of the characters and the skins. It just feels better than with other MOBAs where your character is just a small dot on the big screen.
Reward systems that throw junk at you
What completely drove me crazy, however, was the plethora of different reward and shop systems and various events that all happen simultaneously.
Just in the main menu, I can click on so many different things:
- Store
- Battle Pass: Transformers
- Esports & Live Streams
- Yulefest
- Odyssey: Perilous Seas
- Vault
Each of the aforementioned points has several submenus with numerous buttons and further explanations, even more submenus and different systems that are all interwoven.
It’s overwhelming. It’s so much that after 5 minutes, you think: Just leave me alone with all this crap and let me play.
It doesn’t help that every one of these submenus has lengthy explanations with dozens of popups and interwoven purchase offers.
This doesn’t get better after a match either. After every round, 1-7 unlocks for some nonsense pop up that isn’t even clearly visible because the unlock textures don’t load. I feel like I’m in a mobile game that keeps rewarding me with various “great” bonuses to keep me engaged. Nothing truly useful or beautiful has been there so far.
Here, “less is more” would be very pleasant. Maybe this is a problem that long-time SMITE players don’t have, who have gradually become familiar with the introduction of these events and reward systems.
For me, it felt completely overwhelming, so I avoid the entire menus and numerous submenus that I would likely have to spend almost as much time understanding as I would in grasping the new gods.
Especially absurd: There was even a button “Unlock Free Rewards”, where I was seriously supposed to watch 50 ad clips in SMITE. Well, I thought. What would stop me from allowing the clips to run while waiting for a game? “Your dignity,” a friend said on Discord. Somehow true.
Nevertheless: SMITE is really fun
In summary, SMITE has significantly grown over the past years. Unfortunately, not just in terms of playable characters but also regarding the whole “surrounding context.” The menu feels overloaded, and the countless unlocks are more annoying than rewarding.
But as a whole, I like SMITE. The numerous different maps, the many game modes, and the diversity of gods are a joy. Especially with one or two friends, SMITE still develops the same pull and addiction effect as a few years ago.
I have definitely allocated significantly more time for the MOBA in my calendar.
A goddess once renamed SMITE – because otherwise, it would have caused real problems.
